Quoting Michael Scott (luv@inoz.net):
So you've decided who I am, what I am, from that very short response to you?
No, I was merely trying to parse what you said, and understand why you were upset. That was a surmise based on your posted text. ('Text communication proved imperfect! Full story at 10!') Here's something to know and tell: No, I absolutely do _not_ know you, sir. I cannot recall you previously speaking. I get an impression from you based only on a totally bizarre and somewhat logic-challenged mailing list posting, and have attempted to guess what your problem is -- a point I will return to, below.
No, I wouldn't call myself "evangelical". I simply took you to task on YOUR opinions of the Bible, and Russell on his conclusions from the article.
So, OK, you tell me, then: What the aitch ee double-hockey-pucks was your problem? You seemed to have 'evangelical' completely and tragically confused with 'evangelism', and on that erroneous foundation to be taking theatrical offence on behalf of all Christians who ever felt a need to _evangelise_, which IMO seemed to require a particularly thick massive misreading of the entirety of what I wrote. I don't believe I said anything that should have rationally caused offence to Christians. Well, some Biblical literalists (both Christian and Jewish) would have been offended by my dismissal of the historicity claims of the entire story of Moses, etc., but hundreds of years of archaeology and careful textual analysis make the truth of that IMO indisputable to anyone open to scientific evidence, and anyone madly arguing with science has bigger problems than being upset at me for alluding to it.
Up until your summary of the Bible I applauded you (mostly), but as I said, you seemed to have all the answers, just as Russel seemed to have a great knowledge of Christianity, rom his childhood.
Again, you take theatrical offense that I eludicated my view, as if I had somehow denied anyone the right to hold a contrary view, but the latter is simple not the case. So, yay for you in managing to hold an opinion about religion in contrast to billions of other people who are so intimidated by Rick Moen posting his personal assessments to luv-talk that they cannot form one. Um, OK, great. Let's run with that. I had previously thought that only Americans suffered from the peculiar capacity to take great public offence because someone else dared to articulate what they think, as if this prevented the other party from doing likewise. Today, I have learned that this bizarre mental quirk is also known elsewhere, so you've given me that gift, so yay?